Chapter 10.docx

Chapter 10
- Walter Mischel—study ability to delay immediate gratification in order to obtain larger rewards
o Some children distracted themselves by singing, sleeping, or making up games (more successful)
while others just looked at the rewards or the bell
o Indicator for social and cognitive competence and their coping skills at older age
 Those who waited longer had higher SAT scores, higher educational levels, higher self-
esteem, reported better able to cope with stress, less likely to use cocaine or crack
 Labeled ―emotional intelligence‖ or ―affective social competence‖
 Emotional Intelligence—set of abilities tat are key to competent social functioning
o Motivate oneself, persist in frustration, control impulses, delay
gratification, understand one’s own and other’s feelings, regulate one’s
moods, regulate the expression of emotion in social interaction,
empathize with other’s emotions
 Predicator or how well people do in life (social)
- Themes:
o Individual differences
o Nature vs. Nurture
o Active child—regulate own emotions/ behaviors
o Continuity/ discontinuity—emergence of self-conscious emotions
Development of Emotions in Childhood:
- Emotion:
o Physiological factors—heart, breath rate, hormone
o Subjective feelings
o Cognitions that may elicit or accompany subjective feelings
o Desire to take action (escape, approach, change people or things in environment)
o Example: when people experience fear in response to a growling dog, they typically experience
heightened physiological arousal (Physiological), have the subjective experience of fearfulness
(subjective feelings), probably are thinking about the ways in which the dog might hurt them
(cognition), and have the motivation to get away from the dog (take action).
- Theories on Nature and Emergence of Emotion:
o Silvan Tomkin/ Carroll Izard believe (like Drawin) that each emotion is innately packaged with a
specific set of physiological bodily and facial reactions and that distinct emotions are evident from
very early in life
o Other researches—emotion NOT distinct, environmental factors play an important role in emergence
and expression of emotions
o Some argue that, infants only able to experience excitement and distress in first weeks of life and
other emotions emerge at later ages as a function of experience
o Alan Sroufe:
 3 basic affect system
 JOY/PLEASURE
 ANGER/FRUSTRACTION
 WARINESS/FEAR
 Move from most primitive to more advanced
 Changes are result of children expanding social experiences and their increasing
ability to understand them
o Functionalist approach—basic function of emotions is to promote action toward achieving goal in a
given context (environment like Alan Sroufe)
 Example: Fear—cause one to flee/ avoid stimulus that represents a threat. Helps active
self-preservation
 Joseph Campos—emotional reactions affected by social goals and the influence of
significant others
 Children facing guilt is related to values/ standards communicated by parents, the manner
in which they are communicated and the quality of the relationship with the parent
o Dynamic-system perspective—novel forms of functioning (emotional) arise through the spontaneous
coordination of components interaction with each other repeatedly
o Specific cognition (appraisal) + emotional feels + physiological (neural)= emotional
interpretations
o Emotional reactions develop differently from each person, based on: individual emotional-
related biology and cognitive capacities, experience, how these factors tend to coalesce
across time in increasingly coherent and predictable manner
- The Emergence of Emotion in Early Years and Childhood:
o Parent think they see many emotions in infants—parents however often read into the infants
emotional reaction whatever emotion seems appropriate in the immediate situation
 Example: Child reacts negatively when given novel toy—parent think child produce ―fear‖
BUT may also be anger or upset at being over stimulated
o How can be we make more objective? Codes for facial cues
 Negative emotions are extremely hard to code for!!!
o POSTIVE EMOTIONS:
 Happiness—smiling  1 month—fleeting smiles (REM sleep), After 1 month—smile when stroked gently 
Early smiles—reflexive—evoked by biological state rather than social interaction
 3 - 8 week—smile in reaction to external stimuli—touching, high-pitched voice, attention
rd
 3 month (early as 6-7 weeks)—exhibit social smiles (towards parent/ familiar people—
promote care)
 although infants smile at interesting objects, human more likely to make them
smile (3 month old study—child smiled more at people than doll)
 2 month old—show happiness in both social and nonsocial context in which they can
CONTROL a particular event (pulling the string to hear music (they caused/ controlled this)
vs. hearing music at random intervals study)
 7 months—smile at familiar people rather than people in general--
―selective smiles‖
 3-4 months—laugh and smile during activities (tickle, bounce them on a knee, share
favorite activating like bathing
 By late in first year of life—children’s cognitive development allow them to take pleasure
form unexpected or discrepant events such as mom making a funny noise/ wearing goofy
hat
 2 year of life—children clown around themselves and are delighted when they can make
other people laugh—desire to share positive emotions and activities with parents
o NEGATIVE EMOTIONS:
 First—distress—hunger, pain to overstimulation
 Crying, tight grimace
 Expressed as undifferentiated distress
 Where is it NOT undifferentiated and is differentiate-able
 2 M— one knows the differences from anger and sadness and from distress/pain
o seen in medical injection
 COMPLICATED! –infants sometime display negative emotions that seem
incongruent with the situation they are experiencing
 Fear and Distress:
 6-7 months—fear (strangers)
o up to age 2
o expression is variable—dependent on temperament and specific
context (parent present, how the stranger approached)
o 7 months Other fears: novel toys, loud noises, sudden movements
(decline by 12 Months)
 8 M—separation anxiety—distress due to separation from the patent that is the
child’s primary caregiver—behavior include: whine, cry, fear/ upset
o increases from 8 to 13/15 months and then begin to decline
o Chinese children have more anxiety than Euro-american with
departure of mother
 Anger and sadness
 Anger
o is distinct from other negative emotions by 4-8 M
o By 1 birthday, children express anger towards other people
o By 2 birthday—able to control environment, when control taken away
become upset/ frustrated
 Sadness (same situation as anger)
o After painful even and when they cannot control outcomes in
environment
o More frequent than anger
o Prolonged sadness—separated from parents + not given sensitive care
during this period
o Self-Conscious Emotions: Embarrassment, Pride, Guilt, Shame
 Typical in second year of life
 Self-conscious because have ability to relate our sense of self and our consciousness of
other’s reactions to us
 Michael Lewis—believe self-conscious emotions emerge in second year of life because
that is when children gain the understanding that they themselves are entities distinct from
other people and begin to develop a sense of self
 Discontinuity—result of underlying cognitive awareness
 Emergence of self-conscious emotions fostered by children’s growing sense of
what adults and society expect of them
o Embarrassment: At 15-24 M of age, children show embarrassment
when they are made the center of attention
 Like the children of Zuni Indians in which standing out form
others is discouraged
o Pride: evident in smiling glances at others when the have successfully
met a challenge or achieved something new.
 Linked to level of performance by age 3  Japanese children less likely to display in comparison to US
children
o Guilt: empathy for others and involves feelings of remorse and regret
about one’s behavior, as well as the desire to undo the consequences
of that behavior…concern about OTHERS rd
 Bad and hurtful behavior increases in the 2/3 year
 Southeast/ Asian emphasize welfare of group rather than
individual…then not living up to social or familial obligations
may evoke this
o Shame: focus is on self, feel as if they are exposed and want to hide
 Like the children of Zuni Indians in which standing out form
others is discouraged
 Southeast/ Asian emphasize welfare of group rather than
individual…then not living up to social or familial obligations
may evoke this
 Seen as positive effect in Asian cultures rather
than negative in western cultures
- Normal Emotional Development in Childhood:
o change with cognitive development and experience
 happiness + pride change accordingly
o acceptance from peer and achieving goals happiness and pride during middle childhood
o what make children smile changes over time
 as language skills develop, preschoolers find verbal jokes funny
 as ability to represent imaginary phenomena develops in preschoolerfear monsters
 uncommon in elementary kids—able to understand reality –thus fear is related to
important, real life thsues challenges at school, health, personal harm
o 56% of 2-5 graders reported worries about being physically attacked
o changes with understanding of other’s intentions and motives
 preschooler—anger when harmed by a peer whether or not harm was intentional
 early school years—less anger when believe harm was unintentional or that motive for
some harmful action was benign rather than malicious
o frequency with which specific emotions are experienced also may change
 as children age, become less emotionally intensive and negative (preschool school
years)
 OR after middle childhood, negative emotions increase—marked by increase in intensity/
frequency of negative emotions and decrease in positive emotion
 Is mild (mostly), may also be sharp change
 Appears end of grade 10
 older adolescent also experience less emotional liability than do young adolescent
 Exposure to war/terrorism elicit fear, anxiety, depression
 Exposure to LESS stressors, interparental conflict, also increase children’s experience of
negative emotions
- Depression:
o More common in adolescence than childhood
 clinical depression—depression warranting treatment
 major depression—depressed mood most of time, diminished interest or pleasure in
almost all activities, weight loss, insomnia (excessive sleeping), motor agitation, fatigue/
loss of energy, worthlessness, excessive/ inappropriate guilt, unable to think or
concentrate, recurrent thoughts of death, social withdrawal/ bodily complaints (like in
anxiety)
 Females experience more depression than men (clinical depression)
 Poor children at higher risk for MAJOR depression
 Nonclinical symptoms of depression have nothing to with socioeconomic differences
 Ethnic differences—hispanic more prone to depression than Euro-american or
American-american; chinese experiences more symptoms of depression than US
 Children who experience depression: aggression, staling, delinquency, substance abuse,
relationship with peers
 Causes of depression:
 HERDITY—children with mothers that have depression exhibit a pattern of
activation in the prefrontal cortex that is associate with greater reactivity to
environment, negative emotionality, withdrawal
 Elevated hormone-based stress reactivity
 Parenting—insensitivity, disengagement, little support, little acceptance
o ―depening‖—ignoring positive emotions with high levels of negative
feedback
 Chronic stress/ conflict in family—maladaptive belief system (feel incompetent
and worthless and view world as unfair)
 Lack regulation and skills for positive social interactions
o Negative experiences with peers (victimization, rejection)  Personal vulnerability and external stressful factors
o little investment into school because felt had little control over their
success  depression
o Physiological changes of puberty + increased stress from peers
o Family difficulties in early years + high levels of interpersonal stress
having stress in early years affects child’s ability to adapt
physiologically years later
 Depressed children focus on potential causes and negative consequences of their
symptoms
 Treatment: drug therapy
 Antidepressants increase risk of suicidal thinking/ behavior
 Alternative? Programs designed to promote optimistic thinking and teach positive
solving
REGULATION OF EMOTIONS
- Emotional self-regulation: initiating, inhibiting or modulation the following aspects of emotional functioning:
1. Internal feeling states (subjective experience)
2. Emotion-related cognitions (thoughts about one’s desires or goals, or one’s interpretation of evocative
situation)
3. Emotion-related physiological processes( HRate, homoronal, or other physiological reactions that
can change as a function of regulation one’s feelings states and thoughts)
4. Emotion-related behavior (actions or facial expression related to one’s feelings)
- Development of emotional regulation
o 3 age related patterns of change:
 infants transition from their relying almost total on other people to help them regulate their
emotions to their being increasingly able to self-regulate during early childhood
 use of cognitive strategies to control negative emotion
 selection of appropriate regulating strategies
o Shit from Caregiver Regulation to Self-regulation
 Parents attempt to regulate emotional arousal by soothing or distracting the young infant
 Self-regulation is first shown at 6 M of age in which simply avert their faze unselectively
 Engage in self-soothe repetitive rubbing/ stroking of their body or clothing or
distract themselves by looking at neutral or positive persons or objects
 Age 1-2—use distracting technique by selectively averting their attention
 Showcases child’s growing ability to control their own attention and their movement
 Cause of change?
 Maturation of neurological system—front lobe (manage attention and inhibit)
 Adult expectations—adults expect them to manage own emotion arousal and
behavior (done at 9-12 M—aware of adults’ demands and regulate themselves
accordingly—―do not touch dangerous objects)
 Age 2—children show ability to inhibit motor behavior—―slowing down their
walking when asked to do so‖
 These abilities continue to improve by age 3-5 even though are quite limited in
the toddler years
o Regulating attention improvesconform to adults expectations
o In adolescence—decline in risk-taking and the improvement in
judgment (result of neurological changes in cortex)
o Use of Cognitive Strategies to Control Negative Emotion:
 Younger children-distract (behavioral strategies)
 Older Children—cognitive
 If found in unpleasant situation rethink goals or meaning of events so that they adapt
gracefully to the situation  allow children to avoid acting in counterproductive ways
o The selection of Appropriate Regulatory Strategies
 Selecting cognitive or behavior strategies that are APPROPRIATE for particular situation
and stressor
 Reasons?
 With age, children more aware that appropriateness is dependent on needs,
goals, and nature of problem
o Example: rather than giving up, there are other ways to obtain a goal
 The ability to distinguish what one has control over (homework) vs. not control
over (painful medical procedure)
o In uncontrollable situations—should learn to adapt to it rather than try
to CHANGE it
- The relation of emotional regulation to social competence and adjustment
o Social competence: set of skills that help individuals achieve their personal goals in social interactions
while maintaining positive relationship with others
 Children capable of inhibiting inappropriate behaviors, delay gratification and use cognitive
methods of controlling emotions tend to be well-adjusted and liked by their peers and adults
 Children who able to deal with constructively with stressful situations—negotiating with
others to settle conflict, planning to resolve upsetting situation, seeking social support—are better adjusted than are children who lack these skills, including those who avoid dealing
with stressful situations altogether
 Do better in school pay attention, better behaved, liked by peers
Individual Difference sin Emotion and Its regulation
- Mellow children/ infants: they do not become upset easily, do not have difficult time calming down when upset
- Emotional children: get upset quickly and intensely, negative emotion persist long time
- Children differ in their timidity—their expression of positive emotion + ways they deal with emotions
- Children differ in speed with which they expression their emotions
- Genetic + environment contribute to individual differences
- TEMPERAMENT:
o Constitutionally based differences in emotional, motor and attentional reactivity and self-regulation
that demonstrate consistency across situations, as well as relative stability over time
 ―constitutionally based‖=biologically based
 nutritional deviancies/ exposure to cocaine affect infants ability to regulate their
attention and behavior
 cortisol (hormone that activities energy reserves)—child abuse/ maternal
insensitivity
o Themes: individual differences + nature and nurture
o 3 types of children (based on attention span and persistence, quality of mood, adaptability and activity
level)
 EASY (40%): adjusted readily to new situations, quickly established daily routines (sleeping
and eating) and in cheerful mood and easy to calm
 DIFFICULT (10%) : slow to adjust to new experiences, tended to react negatively and
intense